Gorbachev calls for nuclear weapons treaty, Feb. 28, 1987

On this day in 1987, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said the Kremlin was ready to sign “without delay” a treaty aimed at eliminating U.S. and Soviet medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe within five years.

Gorbachev’s offer ultimately led to the signing of a breakthrough Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in Washington in December. Under that pact, the Soviets withdrew some 1,500 medium-range missiles from Eastern Europe while Washington removed nearly half that number from West Germany.

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Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan had been dealing with the issue of nuclear arms reduction in Europe since 1985, when they met for their first summit in Geneva, Switzerland. A subsequent meeting in Iceland in 1986 broke down when Gorbachev linked the issue to his demand that Washington stop development on its Strategic Defense Initiative — Reagan’s “Star Wars” anti-missile defense system.

At a White House briefing on March 3, Reagan welcomed Gorbachev’s proposal and said the United States would soon send high-level negotiators to Geneva to conclude work on the new treaty.

Meanwhile, the State Department announced that Under Secretary Michael H. Armacost would visit Moscow on March 16 and 17 for arms talks. Armacost conferred with Yuli Vorontsov, a first deputy foreign minister and Moscow’s chief arms negotiator.

The final agreement called for each side to withdraw its medium-range missiles from Europe and to limit missile warheads elsewhere to 100 apiece. The Soviet Union would keep them in its Asian regions, while the United States would keep them within its own territory.